I’m a dork. Yeah, the Minds had one of my top ten 7”s of 2003 and, yeah, I reviewed the CD format of this record a couple issues back, but fuck a ghost with a salami, I’m happy that a German label is releasing this on vinyl. The CD, instead of spending a respectable six months in the high rotation pile and being cycled to the far wall has now been relegated to the truck for an assured three more months of constant listens. It comes down to this – yeah, there’s a keyboard. Yeah, there’s new wave trappings slathered all over this like a slippery sauce, and yeah, there’s a lot of stripes involved in the layout and the visual concept of the band, but beyond all the potentially easily dismissables, is this irrefutable fact: they can write an entire album of catchy songs. There isn’t a turd on the whole platter. Missing Persons can’t claim that. Human League can’t claim that. (That first Vapors record is pretty damn good, though.) Rock solid songwriting trumps any fancy press packet or leaky memory any day. Plastic Girls is more recommended than before, just by the fact I still compulsively listen to it.
–todd (Alien Snatch)